Eminent Homemaker
County: Clark
Mrs. Earl L. Arne was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and grew up on a farm. In 1915 she came to Spink County, South Dakota to teach school and later taught in Raymond.
In 1920 she was married and with her husband moved to the Arne homestead, and they have lived there since. The Arne’s reared three sons and a daughter, Don, Monroe, Vernon and Alice. Don and Monroe, are the third generation of Arne’s to farm the homestead.
Arne has always been an active member of civic and church activities. She and her husband were both 4-H leaders for 15 years, and were largely responsible for establishing the first club in Clark County. She still teaches Sunday school class, and belongs to a missionary society at the Assemble of God Church at Clark.
The Arne children were active members of the Fordem Stockmen club, while their parents were leaders. Three of them, Vernon, Monroe and Alice attended the National 4-H Club Congress in Chicago, in 1940, 1942 and 1950, respectively, while Don was state recreation project winner in 1953.
This farmer homemaker was her husband’s “right-hand man” during the depression. “I helped the boys do chores and did some of the overseeing of framework while Earl worked in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration Office,” she said, “I was glad to work in the fields during two wars,” she added, “but I doubt if I could should we have another one.”
Mrs. Arne also recalls other hard times during the depression and war years, when labor was scarce. “Alice did the cooking when she was only ten years old, while everyone else worked in the field. The boys ran trucks when they were only seven and ten.”
Recent activities of Arne’s have included a trip to the national meeting of the National Federation of Home Demonstration Clubs at Madison, Wisconsin, in 1960. She is also competing this year in a make-it-with-wool contest sponsored by the South Dakota Sheep Council. Of this latter activity she says, “I have always wanted to enter a contest of this kind, and figure that I’d better do it now.”
She has been an inspiration to her sons and daughters and to many young people in her community.